promised by the bab. he did this in the city of baghdad, after he had been sent out of tehran, which was his home and banished to baghdad. after he declared that he was the one the bab had promised and all the religions of the past had promised, he was banished again to what was constantinople, now istanbul. he was banished still further to other places in a further attempt by the government and the clergy to eliminate the followers of bahÁ'u'llah. since his faith was growing very rapidly there was considerable concern that it was recruiting too many people and was growing too rapidly and gaining too much power. and their desire was to stamp it out. in that part of the middle east, the bahai faith was viewed as a heresy, because it came after islam. it is unfortunately often said that the bahai faith is a sect of islam. that could only be said if christianity were to be called a sect of judaism. since the bahai faith came from islam in much the same way that christianity came from judaism. so that's the derivation of the bahai faith. but the faith then spread then rapidly throughout

and particularly we are talking about socio-economic differences in the united states particularly a big city like los angeles. and also, unfortunately, racism. so if we could, let's hear keith respond to some questions about new directions for religion in america. one of the important goals of believes and believers is, for students to develop an appreciation for religious diversity. we're very fortunate today to have professor keith naylor, who is a professor of religious studies at occidental college in los angeles. keith, we're seeing in society a further gap in terms of the haves and have-nots, sort of a socio-economic gap. is this going to affect the organization of religions or are we going to see religions further splitting according to who has wealth and who doesn't in our society? >> well, i think we've already seen some of that in some places. but, being in los angeles i am seeing a different kind of model where, and i think this is the value of living a major urban centre-- where churches are and other religious groups are really seeing their mandate as closing that divide and bringing

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